Immigration Vs Today

The early settlers of America and today’s immigrants have a lot more similarities than one would assume. Both groups had to endure several challenges when trying to enter the United States in search of a better and easier life. They had to worry about hydration and physical endurance while also risking having their families split up, getting sick, and even dying. That is where the similarities end though, as today’s immigrants must go on with their lives in extreme powerlessness, something the early inhabitants avoided by establishing their own authority. Today’s immigrants are restricted from the most basic of necessities and have to face hostile and belligerent groups of people, among other things. Today's immigrant's experiences are much

While the early settlers also did not have access to things like healthcare or employment, such institutions did not exist at the time so that was beyond their control. In today’s world though, immigrants are prevented from accessing any of those. Reporter Manny Fernandez of the New York Times displayed this prevention when he reported on the struggles that plague immigrants who live in “a zone north of the Mexican border but south of traffic checkpoints that the Border Patrol operates within Texas” (Fernandez) that is dubbed la jaula de oro, or the golden cage. Among one of the inhabitants is Elizabeth Lopez, who like all of the other immigrants who live in the area, is essentially trapped in this zone because she is guaranteed deportation if she goes north where the checkpoints are. Her situation got even more difficult in 2010 when she gave birth to a boy with Down Syndrome, colon and heart problems. Lopez cannot give the child the medical attention he needs because the hospitals are out of her reach, they are past the immigration checkpoints. Fernandez goes on to state, “Immigrants here have also missed relatives’ funerals, refused to evacuate as hurricanes approached, narrowed searches for jobs - all because they feared venturing beyond the checkpoints” (Fernandez). The early settlers did not feel confined to their location. If anything they used the idea of

Their experiences here make it so that they question everything around them, being too trusting or unwary can result in them being deported. Recently several states throughout the country have started approving programs that grant driving licenses to illegal immigrants. Among one of the states that decided to grant these licenses was Illinois, where journalist Juan Perez Jr. of the Chicago Tribune reported on the situation Felipe de Jesus Diosdado was going through. Diosdado thought he was going to a meeting for his license application, but it actually turned out to be a trap. He walked into a room full of immigration agents who were ready to deport him. According to reporter Juan Perez Jr. Diosdado stated, "I felt sort of betrayed, because I didn't think that was going to happen" (Perez Jr. 1). Diosdado must have felt completely misled when he realized what was happening and unfortunately he is not the first or last person to go through this. Immigrants constantly fear going to the authorities because they fear situations like Diosdado’s. They are promised safety yet their legal status can easily be given to immigration services. Perez Jr. goes on to add:
While the state says only Diosdado risks being deported because of background checks related to the license program, close to 2,400 other applicants in the license program have been investigated - and had their